


Still Rescued Most and All

by ultimatebara



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Canon Compliant, Heavy Angst, M/M, four songs made me do this but only one caused the most damage, the usual angst in patrochilles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 12:39:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13636470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultimatebara/pseuds/ultimatebara
Summary: The rage of a lover whom lost everything to the prophecy that swallowed him whole and raw.





	Still Rescued Most and All

**Author's Note:**

> Strongly recommend listening to The Night We Met by Lord Huron while reading this

“By tomorrow we’ll be swimming with the fishes.” Patroclus stated and Achilles chuckled, letting the fig’s juice run down his chin. He covered his mouth with his backhand and looked at the other.

“We’ll be on a boat, Patroclus.” He reminded the other and offered him the small basket full with ripen figs.

The other didn’t answer, but took one fruit, biting it. Patroclus had his eyes fixed on the ocean in front of them, the endless blue that stretched to the horizon to meet the sky. The waves broke on the sand and the brunette thought about Thetis and her distaste over him and his relationship to Achilles.

Their mission to Troy was just a replacement to their own troubles in Phthia and the outline of a fate he would rather forget. He looked at his Achilles by his side, golden locks wavering in the wind and shining under the sun.

He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to let Achilles go into the front line to reclaim a love that wasn’t his, a marriage that had nothing to do with them. However, he remembered his father and his scowl towards him no matter what he did. He remembered that night, when everyone made a vow that they would come to aid if anything happened.

Patroclus remembered the golden boy that run amongst ordinary boys and smiled to him without an ounce of worry and juggled figs to his entertainment.

Patroclus leaned in and let a kiss on Achilles lips, receiving a chuckle in response and pull to lay on top of the other.

By tomorrow they would be just the dust of their love.

 

Some days Patroclus woke without Achilles by his side. The sandals on the other side of the tent as the day crept inside, just like in their youth. He knew those days would start with the blonde intensely missing him. The thought that, maybe, the encounters with his mother would leave him on edge was enough.

When Achilles returned, the ocean’s salty smell flooding his senses mixed with Achilles’ own smell, they loved each other.

They loved each other even on days they howled at the other, biting words escaping their mouths as the war came closer and closer, but Achilles wouldn’t falter and Patroclus didn’t agree.

Apologies were common when their feet touched under the covers, when their eyes met in the dim light of outside torches and their hands matched on their skins. Hearts beating synchronized.

 

The moment they brought Patroclus’ body to him, Achilles’ mind took him to the day they met.

The lonely boy at the end of the table. The brown locks and those big dark eyes watching him as Achilles talked with the other boys.

He remembered the juggling he did to attract his attention and the sweet taste those figs had when they both shared them.

 

He held the cold body close to his chest, sobbing as the wound gleamed under the golden sun. The ruby blood running from the full lips, the beautiful mouth that Achilles kissed and were kissed so many times.

The dark eyes looking at him, but not seeing; dull, glassy.

“Achilles, we have to-“, Phoenix begun and the blonde sobbed more, shaking his head as Patroclus’ forehead lay on his shoulder. The hot tears streaming down his face as he tried, tried, tried to feel something from the corpse. A fading beating heart, the slightest rise of his chest. Anything that would prove Patroclus’ was still with him.

However, nothing happened.

He could only feel the sweat on his hands as he touched the other’s face.

“Oh… Gods…” he muttered, seeing the bruises that formed around his right eye. He brushed away blood damp curls and sniffed “Y… You did… ” his voice faltered and he squeezed his eyes.

He took a deep breath and looked up and around, motioning his arm to a white cloth that were laying around the armors. Many soldiers were walking back and forth, the carriages disappearing to occupy the front line as Achilles took the fabric and wrapped his lover’s body with it.

He knew they were looking at him, waiting, expecting the shock pass and that he took the front to Troy. He held Patroclus in his arms and turned his back, walking to his tent.

Patroclus never felt so heavy in his arms.

 

He held his hand in his, resting his lips on the knuckles. The cold skin was bare; the blood had dirtied the cloth and the bed they slept on. As he kept his eyes on the bloodied face, his chest ached with the loss, with the heavy weight that settled on it, with the part of him who was taken so brutally away.

His mind took him to his 16th birthday and the way they touched each other inside the quartz cave. The nights that followed, so embarrassing as new lovers would be, but theirs and only theirs. He thought how Patroclus was skinny and shy and thought, too, about the man he had become and now was gone.

The tent entrance ruffled and Achilles didn’t avert his eyes to see who had come after him. He needed to clean the blood.

“Who did this?” he asked calmly, but Antilochus knew that hurt would be replaced with anger as he spoke.

“Hector.”

He remembered Patroclus, in many moments, begging him not to kill Hector. He remembered once, when they were laying side by side, the sweat damped hair on their foreheads as their beating hearts synchronized as Patroclus kissed him lazily, fondness in the tip of his fingers.

“You have to remember, Achilles.” He whispered, brushing off a lock from his eyes, the darker skin hot against his as he delighted himself on that feeling “Not to kill Hector.” His words were serious, but he smiled as if the destined weight wasn’t there “Or this night won’t ever repeat itself.” He chuckled and the blonde smiled in response, touching the other’s neck.

“What has Hector ever done to me?” he laughed and kissed the other’s lips again.

Hector had taken everything from him.

 

 

Achilles saw his life taking the prophecy tracks when he hit Hector with ire. He didn’t care if he would die when the most important part of him wasn’t in that world anymore.

The blood the other coughed mixed his sweat and Achilles wanted to make him suffer, but only copied the blow Patroclus took to his chest. Spear through the heart and the unforgiven sun above their heads, in front of Troy’s gate.

“My rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw – such agonies you have caused me."

All who watched understood that _Aristos Achaion_ died and only Achilles was left when Hector’s ankles were roped to the chariot.

Would Patroclus forgive his beloved if he knew the dishonor he was capable of doing? Would this thought haunt him until his last breath, now that the prophecy would finally take its course in history?

The answer was the blood scratches on the soil the body left as Achilles dragged it to the Myrmidon’s camp.

 

 

When the gold embers floated to the sky, taking his Patroclus, his _Philtatos_ , from him, Achilles saw no purpose on living anymore. He could hear the ocean, singing a mourning song as his arms still felt the heavy weight of the body, the cold sensation of his skin.

The remembrance of Priam in his tent, begging for his son’s body filled his mind. He wouldn’t have done the same if they had not return Patroclus to him. Not a million soldiers could take him from him.

However, Patroclus’ body returned to him and the pity he felt for Priam, in that night, he felt for himself. How could he deny his Patroclus a proper funeral?

The thought of those dark eyes looking at him with disapproval as his lips crooked to one side made a small, watery, smile creep into his lips.

The humming filled his ears as he held himself together, tears forming around his eyes as he took the ashes, the last remaining of his heart, of his life, and put them in the urn.

He looked up and saw the moon, shinning, on the night sky. The embers floated away and got lost amongst the stars, somewhere leaving lines of a perfect man.

“When I die” he begun, the song mixing with his words “mingle my ashes with Patroclus’ ” he demanded as the weight of the golden urn reminded him nothing of his lover “so we can be together in the afterlife.”

Finding his love, they would find him.

 

 

The afterlife came with an arrow to his heel.

The illusion of Patroclus, the reason he survived for so long, in front of him, with the brightest smile was enough to let him close his eyes with finality. He saw brown curls crowned by the sun itself as if Apollo was capable of remorse.

For long as he could remember, during the time he waited for his _Philtatos_ to come to him, he rehearsed their meeting. He would kiss Patroclus as they had never kissed before, would look at him like it was their first meeting and he wanted to etch each and every line of the handsome face into his mind.

When their fire, finally, turned to dark, with the golden urns around them, with their hands linked in the darkness and curls, blonde and brown, crowning each of them, Achilles could only cry.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse to writing this if not to cry  
> I will never get over this two ;-;


End file.
